Tuesday’s Tip

Possibility > Certainty. Consider the ratio of possibility and certainty you intimate in your academic arguments. This may sound strange, but it turns out that published academic writers construct a different balance than student writers: expert writers do show certainty, but they show more possibility, or qualification, in their claims, while student writers show more certainty than possibility and often come across as overstating their claims. Consider introducing more possibility (e..g, in words like perhaps, possibly, suggests, and might) than certainty (e.g., in words like certainly, clearly, fails, proves, and never) as you write and revise your academic arguments.